


sang on your hands that have been in the grave

by jaekyu



Category: Day6 (Band), GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 08:20:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6947407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaekyu/pseuds/jaekyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?</p>
            </blockquote>





	sang on your hands that have been in the grave

**Author's Note:**

> for gotday tlist in general, though i have to blame jas for the original idea of this
> 
> this fic is written in a one word, one sentence style but i clearly let the sections for each word go on longer then a sentence. just an experiment with style and syntax i hope y'all enjoy
> 
> a word of caution: mentions of mind control, some violence. it should be noted jaebum is very much dealing with mental illness in this fic and sungjin doesn't always do the best thing to help him with that. also, possible spoilers for captain america: the winter soldier.

When I was growing up, they would say you could become cops or criminals.  
But what I'm saying is this: when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?  
(THE DEPARTED) 

 

#01: **MOTION**  
They call it the shield and the spear paradox: what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? 

Jaebum hits the ground so hard he feels it reverberate up his whole spine. Like a spring pulled taut finally left to release, only it’s every one of his vertebrates vibrating inside of him and makes his jaw clench. When you fall from so far and so fast you expect more than just the dull thud that is the reality.

The snow Jaebum lays in immobile is cold, sticks to his eyelashes and cheekbones as it descends delicate from the sky. 

It’s peaceful, all things considered. It’s not a bad way to die, Jaebum thinks. 

Sungjin will be okay, Jaebum hopes. Then he closes his eyes. 

 

#02: **COOL**  
Cold has a way of settling deep in your bones. Let it settle enough times and for long enough and it will carve itself into you. Replace your bone marrow with shards of ice. Won’t ever let you thaw out. Bones made of icicles, veins covered by frost, a heart that’s heavy block of ice and unmoving and hard to grip. 

They settle Jaebum (he doesn’t remember he’s Jaebum, not in this moment, but he will know later) back into the cryo chamber. He does not shiver. 

 

#03: **YOUNG**  
“Hey,” Jaebum shouts. The gaggle of boys that surround Sungjin turn to face him. “Will you pick on someone your own size?” 

Jaebum is an early bloomer. These boys are not early bloomers and they are decidedly not Jaebum’s size. He’s nearly a foot taller and so t he group of boys shrink away, intimidated. Jaebum gestures with his head for them to run off.

Jaebum has found Sungjin early enough into the fight this time. He’s stumbled upon Sungjin’s scraps with other boys halfway through before, when Sungjin’s still trying to fight back. He’s found Sungjin afterwards, on the ground after a dozen kicks to the gut.

Right now all Sungjin has is a split lip and a swollen cheek and eye. Jaebum proffers his hand to his friend and hoists him up. “Can’t you fight someone you can beat on your own?” Jaebum says, joking. 

Sungjin wipes the dirt off his jacket, a gift from his aunt for his thirteenth birthday. “I’d have to fight a toddler,” he replies, pushing his ring finger against the split in his lip and watching it come back away bloody. 

Jaebum gives a small laugh. He puts his hand in Sungjin’s hair to ruffle it, “you’re still young, Sungjinnie,” it’s a joke - Sungjin is older than Jaebum. “You’ll hit your growth spurt soon,” 

 

#04: **LAST**  
Jaebum’s last word to Sungjin is his name, whispered quietly before he became that unstoppable object. Before he was cold. 

Until one day he holds a handgun in front of himself, pointed at Sungjin, and Jaebum says “Who’s Jaebum?” and suddenly it isn’t anymore.

 

#05: **WRONG**  
The shield and the spear paradox. That’s what they call it.

The metal of Jaebum’s arm meets the metal of Sungjin’s shield and it clangs hard. It rings in his ears and makes the metal limb strain against the leftover intact muscles on his shoulder, where artificial knits with organic. 

“Jaebum,” Sungjin breathes, quiet, as if it’s only for the two of them. 

(Jaebum still doesn’t know that name. Only thinks of himself as I and Me and all anyone ever calls him is Soldier, all anyone he calls him in The Asset. 

The cold pulled that name from him like a ice pick lobotomy.) 

“Who’s Jaebum?” He croaks. The name is not quite foreign. It catches Jaebum off-guard. It’s wrong. He doesn’t understand why it’s wrong. He doesn’t know why his throat closes up and why his grip against the hard curve of the shield falters. 

The shield and the spear paradox. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? 

 

#06: **GENTLE**  
Sungjin is so gentle. So warm and forgiving and he doesn’t understand that that makes it harder, does he? He puts his hand on Jaebum’s shoulder, where metal meets skin and says, “that wasn’t you.”

What Sungjin doesn’t understand is that to Jaebum it sure felt like him.

It was his hands that pulled triggers for shots aimed using his eyes through a scope. It was his ears that orders from higher-ups fell on. They were his legs that took him from place to place.

They are all Jaebum’s own memories. Sungjin doesn’t understand. 

 

#07: **ONE**  
“If you could have one wish,” Jaebum says, before everything. When they are much younger, Sungjin curled up in a sleeping bag on Jaebum’s floor. They’d been told an hour ago to sleep but they’ve just been staring at the same dark ceiling and whispering to each other, “just one, one real live wish - what would you wish for?” 

“I don’t know,” Sungjin says, “I think - I think maybe I’d just wish to be your friend forever.” 

 

#08: **THOUSAND**  
Jaebum wants to say something. He wants to stand from this chair they sat him in and shout - at who he can’t tell you, he’s never met them properly and they’re just on the other side of a video call but he wants to yell at them until his throat goes raw. 

It wouldn’t help at all. 

Sungjin stands in front of him, back to Jaebum. He stands with his body half-covering Jaebum from view, a protector. Jaebum doesn’t know if he deserves to be protected. 

“He didn’t know what he was doing,” Sungjin says. Jaebum can’t see his face but Sungjin’s voice drips with anger. 

They want Jaebum to answer for his crimes. Jaebum wonders if that’s what he deserves. There’s a thousand reasons for either side of this argument, it seems. 

He’s glad it’s not up to him to decide. 

“Do you know how many people he’s killed?” The person Jaebum wishes he could yell at says. Jaebum doesn’t want to yell at him because he’s wrong, he wants to yell at him because he keeps talking to Sungjin live he’s stupid.

Sungjin is the smartest person Jaebum’s ever known. 

 

#09: **KING**  
Sungjin doesn’t mean to put Jaebum in his shadow and it’s not entirely Sungjin’s fault that Jaebum ends up there either. It’s a combination of things.

Sungjin’s physical stature, for one. Jaebum nearly matches it, almost, but there is only so much a bastardized, haphazardly put together version of the super soldier serum can do. Sungjin had the real thing.

There is also the problem of how Jaebum naturally wants to shrink away from the harsh warmth of light and retreat into the cold darkness of the shadow Sungjin casts. It’s not all Sungjin’s fault. It’s Jaebum’s fault too. 

Sungjin casts a shadow in ways beyond physical. Everything about him seems regal, king-like, meant to be a leader to inspire people. Inspire people to be like him. A hero for the people. Jaebum is no monarch, doesn’t think he’ll ever be. 

 

#10: **LEARN**  
Here’s what it feels like to have your brain picked apart and put back together: Jaebum doesn’t know. When they picked his brain apart they picked out that memory along with so many others. 

Jaebum can tell you what it’s like to try and find all the pieces of your brain and fit them together like a jigsaw: it feels like you’re an infant learning to walk and talk and live again.

 

#11: **BLUR**  
Jaebum loses time occasionally. Whole days that he can only recall as a blur with brief moment of clarity. Sungjin tells him it’s because he gets too inside his own head sometimes. 

It’s still so messy up there, Jaebum doesn’t tell Sungjin, it’s still so messy and I need to clean it up. “I’m sorry,” is all he says instead.

“Don’t apologize,” Sungjin replies. Because he’s Sungjin and Sungjin never wants to make Jaebum feel bad, just wants Jaebum to be the best he can be. Sungjin with his unshakeable belief in the good of people. “I just don’t like when you go places I can’t follow.” 

 

#12: **WAIT**  
Sungjin gets called away on a mission. Top secret, covert, only a small amount of people need to know. Jaebum is not on that list of people. He’s a loaded gun, a reformed traitor that not everyone necessarily believes is reformed, and you don’t give the gun that may want to kill you the bullets it needs to do so. 

Sungjin has hardly left Jaebum’s side since - since he came back. Jaebum’s not sure what to call it. It doesn’t matter anymore, or at least that’s what Sungjin tries to convince him. Jaebum tries, for Sungjin, would try anything Sungjin asked of him. 

They’re alone in the armory. Sungjin is in his full suit besides his mask. The shield sits on the table. Jaebum watches Sungjin move about in it’s reflection. 

“If you need anything,” Sungjin says, in the reflection Jaebum can see that Sungjin has turned to face him, “they can get in touch with me.” 

“I’m not going to break apart as soon as you walk out of the door,” Jaebum sighs. Sungjin’s reflection disappears after he picks his shield up off the table and clips it onto his back. 

“I know that,” Sungjin insists, “I just want you to feel safe,” 

I haven’t felt safe since I came here, Jaebum thinks but doesn’t say. His words were so simple and monotone and obvious when he was just the Soldier. It’s harder to communicate without such strict guidelines. Jaebum doesn’t say a lot of stuff these days because he doesn’t know how.

“I’ll be okay,” Jaebum says quietly.

Sungjin takes a step towards him, arm outstretched. He opens his mouth to say something but the door to armory slides open and interrupts him. 

“Ready?” It’s Brian, dressed in his all black outfit with guns clipped to his belt. Sungjin nods at him. “I’ll be waiting.”

The door slides shut again as Brian walks away. “I’ll be back soon,” Sungjin tells Jaebum. Jaebum blinks at a spot on the floor. “I’ll be back sooner if you need me to be,” 

Jaebum’s heart aches at that. Aches at the fact that Sungjin might think that Jaebum’s life is more precious than somebody else's. 

Sungjin puts two fingers under Jaebum’s chin and lifts his face so they lock eyes. Jaebum swallows, tongue heavy in his mouth, and he wonders if Sungjin’s can feel it with his fingers so close to Jaebum’s throat. 

A moment stretches long between them. Sungjin leans forward, slow and careful, eyes searching Jaebum’s face every inch he gets closer. Jaebum doesn’t move. Sungjin kisses him, then, soft and slow and warm like the rest of him. It makes Jaebum shiver. 

It’s over as quickly as it started, with Sungjin is moving out of the room before Jaebum can even remember that his vocal chords work again. 

“Wait,” is all Jaebum manages but the armory door has already slid shut. 

 

#13: **CHANGE**  
Sungjin has a list of the ways the world has changed since he was frozen for all those years. It’s less overwhelming to catalogue it all like that. He shows Jaebum sometimes. Jaebum has watched Sungjin add to the list. 

Jaebum doesn’t care for change. If he had a list it would be the ways in which the world was the same. Jaebum doesn’t know what he would write in it besides the fact that Sungjin still cares about him. 

 

#14: **COMMAND**  
Maybe it’s a residual programming from when he _wasn’t Jaebum_ , as Sungjin puts it, but Jaebum doesn’t like making decisions. 

Sungjin wasn’t sure how to help at first because all he wanted to do was ask Jaebum how he felt and what he needed and what he wanted and Jaebum hadn’t known what to answer. Hadn’t known how to answer. It could have been as mundane as Sungjin asking him if he was hungry and what he wanted to eat. 

Jaebum didn’t want to be asked. Everything was easier when you were being told. 

“I can’t tell you do to everything,” Sungjin had explained calmly, “I can’t tell you to feel better, or to be happier. You have to work on that yourself.”

If Sungjin ever did tell Jaebum to be happy, to be better and happier - Jaebum think he could fake it pretty well. He’d try to do anything for Sungjin. 

 

#15: **HOLD**  
Jaebum has nightmares sometimes. No, most of the time.

They are vivid and awful nightmares, where blood looks so bright and ugly against pure white snow. Where the pain is so real Jaebum wakes up sore the next morning. Where hopelessness and guilt engulf Jaebum from all sides, like a cloud of the thickest black smoke. They cover his skin and soot and fill his lungs with poison. 

Sungjin takes to sleeping in the bed next to Jaebum. Sungjin can stave off the nightmares sometimes, but Jaebum always has some good days and some bad days. On bad days he always has nightmares. 

When he does Sungjin is there, arms around him and whispering things into Jaebum’s around him. It’s good, or, it’s better. Sungjin can keep away the nightmares and replace them with dreamless sleep. 

Jaebum wishes for just a dream. It’s doesn’t need to be happy. Just calm, just uneventful, just a dream. He hasn’t dreamt in years. 

 

#16: **NEED**  
Jaebum sinks his teeth into Sungjin’s bottom lip and tugs hard, hard enough for Sungjin to suck in a small breath. Jaebum’s not hurting him, just pushing buttons to see Sungjin’s reactions. So far, they’ve all been very pleasing. 

They’ve been to this point before, kissing that devolves into more and more primal actions until, normally, their bodies filled with want would take over for them. Sungjin has not yet allowed it to progress that far, though. 

Jaebum wants so bad. It’s been months and he’s finally made a decision for himself, decided he wants something enough to ask for it. 

“I need you,” Jaebum says, trying to be persuasive. “Please, Sungjin,” 

Sungjin grunts. Jaebum is straddling his lap, knees bracketing Sungjin’s thighs. His hands grip Sungjin’s hair, he breathes ragged and fast. Sungjin has one hand on Jaebum’s face and one on his hip. In all the ways Jaebum is urgent and hard, Sungjin is soft and calm.

An unstoppable force and an immovable object. 

“I need you, I need you, I need you,” Jaebum says like a prayer. Like he’s holding his hands up to the heavens and begging for something, offering anything in return. He’ll be Abraham and Sungjin can tell him to sacrifice his own son and Jaebum might do it. He would do it.

Jaebum keeps saying it, over and over. It stops sounding like words. Jaebum realizes he’s crying, realizes he’s begging in the same way he begged to die when he was being torn apart from the inside and stitched back together like Frankenstein’s monster. 

Sungjin slides a finger across Jaebum’s cheekbone and it must come away wet. He pulls away from Jaebum and looks at him, face crumpled. “Jaebum?” Sungjin says, alarmed. “Jaebum, what’s wrong?”

Jaebum doesn’t know what’s wrong. He doesn’t know how to stop crying. He just keeps saying to Sungjin, “I need you, I need you, I need you,” 

Jaebum comes apart at the seams, puts his head in Sungjin’s neck and cries.

 

#17: **VISION**  
Jaebum stares at Sungjin and it’s like he’s staring at the sun. 

 

#18: **ATTENTION**  
They let Jaebum go back into the field. Of course they do. They won’t keep him locked up in a secret Government facility doing nothing for years, not when he’s who he is. 

They let him carry a gun and punch his way out of problems and it feels good, it feels productive. It feels familiar, in a lot of ways, which is scary. But Sungjin is fighting beside him and as long as Jaebum pays attention and follows his lead he won’t do anything wrong. Sungjin doesn’t do anything wrong. 

 

#19: **SOUL**  
Jaebum’s bones are ice shards, his veins are arctic rivers. His heart is an ice sculpture he hasn’t felt beat in years. A soul trapped in ice. 

Sungjin is the sun. A star of blinding light and burning warmth. 

Sungjin looks at Jaebum and smiles and Jaebum feels a patch of ice inside of him melt. 

 

#20: **PICTURE**  
Sungjin has a photo of them from when they were kids. 

It’s old, same as they are. It’s yellowed and frayed at the edges and is smudged in fingerprints. On the back it’s marked with their names, the date the photo was taken. 

Sungjin is still small, in the photo Jaebum towers over him. He has an arm around Sunjin’s shoulder, head tilted towards his friend. They’re both smiling bright. Sungjin is missing a tooth and neither of them can remember if he had lost it on his own or if someone had punched him in the mouth. 

“I don’t remember taking this,” Sungjin confesses when he shows the photo to Jaebum. “But I like it, a lot. I thought you might too,” 

Jaebum smiles, “of course I do.” 

Jaebum remembers a few things about when they took the picture: how the weather was nice, how they had begged their dad’s for enough coins to buy ice cream sandwiches. How after they came home to wash their hands and faces Sungjin’s mother had insisted they take a picture.

Sungjin had groaned as his mother fished for the camera. “When you’re older,” she had said, “and you’ve been best friends forever, you’ll thank me for this.” 

 

#21: **FOOL**  
“You’re a good person. You remember that, right?” Jaebum’s gut twists. Sungjin is looking at him, face set like stone. He repeats, “you’re the best person I know, Jaebum,” 

Sungjin is smart. He always got better grades then Jaebum, always raised his hand in class to answer, always tried to tutor Jaebum when Jaebum wasn’t having it. Sungjin is supposed to be smart. 

Jaebum wants to bury his face in his own hands and tell Sungjin he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 

 

#22: **MAD**  
Sungjin never gets angry with Jaebum. It’s the most frustrating thing in the world.

Jaebum is so broken, blue and bruised and busted and he makes so many mistakes. All Sungjin ever does it look at him with soft eyes and reassure him he’s okay, everything’s okay. Jaebum hates it. It’s pity and it makes him feel sick. Sungjin doesn’t treat Jaebum the same way he treats everyone else. 

“You don’t have to act like you keep saving me every day,” Jaebum says through clenched teeth, “you saved months and months ago. It’s done. I’m fine.”

Sungjin’s forehead is creased in the middle, his eyes look confused. “What do you mean?” 

“You don’t need to protect me,” Jaebum’s tone is sharp, “from other people, from mistakes, from _myself_. That doesn’t help. That doesn’t make things better.” 

“I -” It gets caught in Sungjin’s throat and he tries to swallow around it. “I’m sorry, I should have - I don’t know how to make it better.” 

“Just treat me the same way you treat everyone else,” Jaebum explains. His metal arm clenches into a fist. “You always try to soften the blow for me. You don’t do that for Brian, for Dowoon or for Jae. I don’t need it either.”

“Okay,” Sungjin laments, “okay, I understand.”

“I wish you would just get angry with me sometimes,”

Sungjin looks taken aback. His whole demeanor shifts away from Jaebum, his foot falters back. “Why?” 

“Because I mess up,” Jaebum bites back, “I mess up so much and you never get angry. It’s like you won’t get angry with me because you’re afraid you’ll break me. You won’t break me. You already saved me once. Stop doing it over and over again.”

“If that’s how you feel -”

Jaebum holds a hand to cut Sungjin off, “stop,” he says. “Tell me how you feel. How do you feel, Sungjin? Be honest with me.” 

“I’m,” Sungjin seems to consider his words for a moment, before he says, “I’m worried all the time. It’s exhausting. Sometimes the things that come out of your mouth about yourself scare me so much. I’m frustrated I can’t help you more. I’m - I’m mad you won’t _let me_ help you more.”

Jaebum narrows his eyes. “Good.” 

 

#23: **CHILD**  
“What do you want to be when you grow up,” Sungjin asks Jaebum when they are much younger. 

Jaebum is drawing lightning bolts and clouds of thunder on Sungjin’s cast on his arm. The one he had to get a week ago when he fell off the park. Jaebum had heard a snap and Sungjin had yelped, landed on the ground with a hard thud. He had barely cried and had held Jaebum’s hand while the doctor set his arm. 

“I don’t know,” Jaebum replies, tongue stuck between his teeth as his marker scratches along plaster. “Maybe I’ll be a firefighter,” 

Sungjin looks pleased. “I wanna be a cop. That means we can save people together, you and me.” 

“Okay,” Jaebum says, excited as he puts the finishing touches on a particularly menacing lightning bolt. He leans back and examines it with pride. “Do you like it?” He asks Sungjin.

Sungjin looks down at his cast and smiles. “I love it,” 

 

#24: **NOW**  
Some day Jaebum will not live in his past. Some day their will only be his present and his future. 

He thinks Sungjin will be there with him. Thinks that, in so many ways, Sungjin himself is Jaebum’s past, present and future. 

 

#25: **SHADOW**  
Sungjin’s shadow is safe. 

It allows Jaebum to fall behind him, to watch his back, to let Sungjin do the talking. It allows him to hide the parts of himself no one knows about. It keeps Jaebum out of the limelight and thrusts Sungjin into it - where he belongs, where he will receive the praise and the love he deserves. 

But Jaebum can’t see Sungjin’s face from his shadow. To do that he’d need to stand beside him. 

 

#26: **GOODBYE**  
“Why are you here,” Jaebum asks.

He’s laying on his side, head on a pillow and facing Sungjin who lies beside him. Sungjin is tracing delicate patterns across the scars that mar the skin around Jaebum’s shoulder. Jaebum barely feels it, too much scar tissue and dead nerves and things that didn’t heal properly. They just wanted Jaebum to be up and running and have all his limbs and they hadn’t had much time. 

“Here, specifically?” Sungjin raises an eyebrow, “because I’m here in bed right now because you cornered me in the shower an hour ago,” 

Jaebum smirks, a small upturn at the left corner of his mouth. He had heard the water running and Sungjin whistling cheerily, like disney princesses in the way that makes the animals of the forest flock to them. Only there was no animals, there was just Jaebum tip-toeing into the shower and dropping to his knees in front of Sungjin, water flowing against his back and hand braced against the tiles. 

Sungjin still looks at Jaebum like he’s going to burst apart sometimes. But he’s getting better. 

“I meant,” Jaebum says, giving Sungjin a playful shove to his chest. Sungjin catches Jaebum’s wrist as he pulls it away and holds it delicately. “Why are you here - with me?” 

“With you?” Sungjin repeats. Jaebum nods. “Because I want to be.” 

“But - why?” Jaebum doesn’t mean for it to come out like a broken sob, but his voice cracks without his consent. “There are so many people it would be easier for you to be with. So many people who deserve you more than me.” 

Sungjin holds Jaebum’s wrist a little tighter, shuffling closer to him on the bed until they are sharing a pillow and their foreheads touch. “I’ve been with you my whole life,” he breathes, “I want to be with you because saying goodbye to you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Because I love you,” 

They kiss, long and hard until they both ache with it. 

 

#27: **HIDE**  
It takes convincing - it takes the whole team of them and a lot of long and hard talks with Sungjin but they manage to convince Jaebum to talk to someone.

“I talk to you,” Jaebum had said, one of the very first times Sungjin had brought it up. 

“You do,” Sungjin smiled, “and that’s good, that makes me proud. But I want you to talk someone who you don’t have to worry about hurting.” 

Jaebum had almost said how he worries about hurting everyone. He held his tongue, realized this was probably the reason why he needed to talk to someone. 

“You hide so much of yourself from everyone,” Sunjin continued, “I want you to feel comfortable with someone. We’ll look until we find someone like that.” 

 

#28: **FORTUNE**  
Park Jinyoung is the richest man Jaebum has ever met. He’s been on the cover of business magazines and TIME magazine too many times to count. Rolling Stone, once too, when he had just turned eighteen and was desperate for attention. 

He’s also a perfect example of all the ways money never buys happiness. 

“I think I craved attention because my Father never gave it to me,” Jinyoung says, tinkering with the adjustments he’s made to his suit. He never stops making adjustments, never stops tinkering. Sungjin once told Jaebum he’s never heard Jinyoung call a project finished. 

The place they all live is paid for in full and built and funded by Jinyoung, he just had the money to burn like that. He’s just willing to build an extremely large home and training facilities for a bunch of misfits, reformed criminals, former spies. A teenager who shoots bows and arrows. 

“Do you think he’s lonely?” Jaebum asks Sungjin.

Sungjin nods, eyes low and sad. There’s something Sungjin hasn’t told Jaebum yet. Jaebum doesn’t press for it. 

 

#29: **SAFE**  
In the hero business you realize nowhere in the world is safe. There’s not a single wall in the world that will keep everyone out. Not even the ones you put up around yourself. 

 

#30 : **GHOST**  
“If everyone thought I was dead for forty years,” Jaebum says to the lot of them - Jae and Jackson and Dowoon, oddly amalgamated together in the same place at the same time for once. “And I’m back now, does that mean I’m a ghost?” 

“Nah, bro,” Jae says, “if you rose from the dead that makes you a zombie.” 

 

#31: **BOOK**  
For Sungjin’s birthday, Jaebum buys him _The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Relationship: How to Support Your Partner and Keep Your Relationship Healthy_ as a joke. Sungjin doesn’t laugh at first, just stares at Jaebum with that worried look he’s so familiar with until Jaebum says, “I’m sure there’s a chapter in there about this,” 

The books ends up being more thoughtful than Jaebum could have anticipated.

 

#32: **EYE**  
Jaebum has catalogued the different ways people look at him:

a) There is fear, sometimes. This happens less now but it hurts the most. It reminds Jaebum too much of his past.

b) There is pity. This one is common. It is the most frustrating.

c) There is understanding. A lot of friends (a new development, a new kind of relationship Jaebum has convinced himself he deserves, an old feeling he remembers but now feels brand new) look at him this way. Jaebum appreciates it the most.

d) There is the way Sungjin looks at him. Jaebum doesn’t know how to describe it. It is his favourite. 

 

#33: **NEVER**  
Jaebum’s grip on the headboard just might snap it in half. He’s trying, he’s really trying to reign back the strength he sometimes he forgets he has but it’s so hard. It’s so hard with Sungjin’s dick inside him while Jaebum rides him, with Sungjin nudging just that exact spot inside of him while he kisses Jaebum’s chest. 

Jaebum’s grip on with his metal arm on the bed tightens, just a little and by accident, and it groans slightly in protest. “Be careful,” Sungjin mumbles against Jaebum’s left pectoral. “How would we explain a broken bed to Jinyoung,” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jaebum huffs. He wants to fuck Sungjin slow and steady but he keeps surrendering to his primal instinct to just go as hard and as fast as he can. “Jinyoung knows how good you fuck, doesn’t he?” 

“I told you,” Sungjin replies. He sinks his teeth into the nipple just above the spot where he was kissing. Jaebum sucks in a breath and clenches, just a little. The bed groans again. “That was before you,” 

After he was unfrozen but before he found Jaebum, Sungjin reminds him every time. Sungjin also reminds him it wasn’t much beyond Jinyoung was the type of person who always got what he wanted - and for a little while he wanted Sungjin. Sungjin says Jinyoung doesn’t want him anymore.

Jaebum isn’t sure about that.

“He’d understand if I broke the bed when you made me come, is all I’m saying,” when Jaebum says the bit about Sungjin making him come, Sungjin digs his fingers into the flesh just above Jaebum’s ass and moans in the back of his throat. “Speaking of that,” Jaebum continues, “will you get on with it?” 

Sungjin hoists Jaebum up and lays him out on his back on the bed, all in one quick movement. They are both technically super soldiers but Sungjin will always be that little bit stronger than Jaebum. 

Sungjin had slipped out of Jaebum when he moved him, so he positions himself carefully and thrusts back inside Jaebum smoothly. Jaebum’s nails grip at Sungjin’s back as he does so. Once Sungjin is situated he stops holding himself back and starts fucking Jaebum in earnest. 

Sungjin forgets sometimes. He has to hold himself back with so many people for fear of breaking them. Jaebum is breakable in other ways - but physically he is built for wear and tear. Sungjin can grip Jaebum as hard as his fists can muster as he thrusts into him and not even leave bruises. 

And it’s so good - so, so good when Sungjin really lets go that way. Sungjin knows all the ways Jaebum is still delicate and he dials himself back in every other way with Jaebum. When Sungjin let’s go and fucks him right he can pretend he’s just like everyone else. 

Jaebum’s orgasm is approaching on him fast, pooling in his stomach and spreading to all his limbs. Loosening his tongue enough to say, “please don’t leave,” 

Jaebum’s voice is so quiet, like he doesn’t want Sungjin to hear. But his mouth is right near Sungjin’s ear, arms wrapped around Sungjin’s neck. 

Sungjin presses his lips to Jaebum’s throat for a long time, probably only tasting sweat and dirt and whatever emotions Jaebum’s body is leaking out from him right now. Then Sungjin whispers, “never,” 

Jaebum sobs, comes all over his stomach and forgets how to catch his breath for a few minutes. 

 

#34: **SING**  
It’s funny the way the world will just spin along without you, Jaebum thinks sometimes. 

Everything you knew can be different, everyone you knew can change. You can be broken apart and try to put yourself together again, you can float above the clouds or feel buried beneath the sea.

In the end it doesn’t matter. The sun will still come and the birds will still sing it’s arrival to everyone who can still listen. 

 

#35: **SUDDEN**  
Jaebum is crouched, curled in on himself while he presses his hands over his ears and tries not to audibly sob. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t -” He can hear Dowoon saying. Kind of. Dowoon sounds like he’s behind a sheet of thick glass. A sheet of glass they’re probably all watching him from the other side of, watching and examining and planning. Jaebum doesn’t know what they could be planning. It scares him. 

His face is wet. “It’s okay, Dowoon, he’s just . . .” says Sungjin’s voice now. Jaebum thinks he sounds understanding - but underneath it he hears cuts of anger, soft edges of worry. Sungjin sounds like he’s behind the glass too? Did he finally realize Jaebum isn’t worth everything Sungjin gives him? Did he finally realize Jaebum is dangerous and should be kept away from everyone else? 

Jaebum knew it would only be a matter of time but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. His chest aches, on fire, and he wants to get up and press his hands against the glass and beg Sungjin to forgive him, whatever he did Sungjin had to forgive him. Jaebum doesn’t know what he did to get put behind all this glass away from everyone and he may deserve it but he’s selfish too, so selfish, and he doesn’t want Sungjin to hate him. 

There’s a hand on Jaebum’s shoulder. Jaebum lifts his head from where it hangs between his knees. He’s met with soft, sad eyes. Jaebum focuses. “Sungjin,” he breathes out when he realizes who it is.

Sungjin is kneeling in front of him with his hand on Jaebum’s shoulder. He’s smiling a little - trying to hide so much behind a smile that Jaebum can see in the edges and the way it doesn’t crinkle the corner of Sungjin’s eyes. “Jaebum,” Sungjin says softly, “it’s me, it’s Sungjin, you’re alright, okay? You’re fine. You’re with me.” 

“Sungjin - Sungjin, I’m sorry,” Jaebum pleads. He looks frantically over Sungjin’s shoulder to see if anyone is watching through the glass but finds nothing. There’s no one watching, there’s no glass. He’s in the living room. He could reach out and touch the carpet, the couch, the coffee table. 

“Jaebum, what,” Sungjin breathes. He starts touching Jaebum all over, gentle and searching. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you, do you know that?” 

Jaebum breathes. The world starts to come back into focus. They were all here, all here in their home and everything was fine. Then - then something happened, Jaebum doesn’t remember what. Something happened and suddenly he was crouched over and crying and scared and didn’t know what was happening. 

Jaebum feels embarrassed. Frustrated, angry and sad that he scared everyone. “I’m sorry,” he says again, his tone more balanced and shamed. He’s not begging anymore, he’s not scared. He’s just ashamed and he is apologetic.

“Oh, Jaebum,” Sungjin mumbles, clearly understanding, “don’t apologize, okay? It’s okay,” Sungjin gives Jaebum soft kisses to his cheeks and forehead and corner of his mouth, “you don’t have to apologize for anything. And if you did I would always forgive you, Jaebum. Always.” 

 

#36: **STOP**  
Jaebum goes a long, long time feeling okay. He goes a long, long time without having any kind of breakdown, meltdown, whatever you want to call it. He goes a long, long time without any of it. It’s so long he can almost forget he was ever a cut and paste paper mache of a human. 

Jaebum almost forgets about the nightmares that would hold him under or launch him panting and terrified out of them. About the pain he felt sitting in the dark with Sungjin breathing beside him, only his thoughts and his memories and the weight of his actions. Pressing on his chest and making it hard for him to breathe.

He’s been better lately. He almost forgot. Jaebum had let himself think it’s had all stopped. 

 

#37: **TIME**  
There are some wounds not even time can heal. 

 

#38: **WASH**  
The blood never comes off. 

Jaebum scrubs soap bars across his knuckles and his open palms and his fingers until they are cracked and raw and still - his own blood merely mixes with all the other blood on his hands. Jaebum doesn’t want them - doesn’t want these hands, these fingers, this pair of wrists. He looks at them and all he sees is dirt beneath his fingernails, pain and destruction and _blood_.

Sungjin threads his fingers through Jaebum’s gently and Jaebum wants to say _no, stop_. He wants to say that his hands have never done good, that they’ll only hurt, only make Sungjin dirty like him. The words aren’t coming out. All Jaebum can do is watch.

Sungjin’s fingers drift around Jaebum’s wrist, circle it carefully, slowly bring Jaebum’s hand to Sungjin’s face. Sungjin presses his lips to the four knuckles of Jaebum’s left fist, exhale from his nose fanning out across his skin. Jaebum’s heart is in his throat, nervous, afraid that this is where everything goes wrong.

Nothing goes wrong. Sungjin pulls Jaebum’s hand from his mouth and smiles at him. All that happens is Jaebum feels less pain pulsating from his clenched hands.

 

#39: **TORN**  
Jaebum is a book with all it’s pages ripped out. Tossed aside, put back together roughly and with no regard for all the pages that were lost. Jaebum is a book with a broken spice, just trying to find all the pages he is missing. 

 

#40: **HISTORY**  
Jinyoung’s mansion has a library about the same size as the house that Jaebum grew up in. It comes with territory of being one of the richest men in the world. You need a tennis court, a dozen car garage, a library with floor to ceiling shelves of books.

“He’s installing the moat in a few months,” Jackson teases. 

In the big library in Jinyoung’s big home on Jinyoung’s big estate, there are books about Sungjin that Jinyoung insists belonged to his father. “Sungjin was partly his creation and Dad wasn’t very good at being humble,” Jinyoung explains.

Jackson points at Jinyoung, “now we know where you get it.” 

In those books about Sungjin sometimes they mention Jaebum. A loyal friend who died valiantly in the line of duty. A hero, someone worth looking up to. Someone who is worthy of sharing pages in books with Sungjin. 

Nobody knows Jaebum is still alive. That’s classified information. If they did know everything about Jaebum these present days, the history books would rather forget him.

 

#41: POWER  
“I love you,” Jaebum says, muffled in Sungjin’s shoulder one night while he holds Jaebum. It’s sleepy, something that slipped out between wakefulness and dreams. 

The words loom over Jaebum when he realizes what he said. Slice deeper than any blade Jaebum’s ever felt. 

They’re both strong and extraordinary humans but somehow the most powerful thing Jaebum has done is say three words. 

 

#42: **BOTHER**  
When Jaebum was still under, when he was still a shell of the person he grew up as, right after he had shattered Sungjin’s whole world by turning back into it, he had said to the scientists tending to him, “the target today,” 

They visibly stiffened, continued working on his arm wordlessly. “That man today,” Jaebum repeated, “he called me by a name I never heard.” 

One of the scientists checks a clipboard. “What name?” He asks Jaebum. 

“I think,” Jaebum doesn’t answer the question, “I think I knew him.” 

Jaebum never tells Sungjin this. It would only bother him. 

 

#43: **GOD**  
Sungjin is built in a way that’s god-like. His arms and his chest and his thighs and legs. A heart that beats harder and is bigger than any other one Jaebum’s encountered, it would seem. He’s perfect, down to every freckle that you can find on his lower stomach or the back of his calf. 

They make a interresting pair, the two of them: the sun god and the frozen soldier who follows him. 

 

#44: **WALL**  
“I have walls too,” Jaebum’s therapist says. Her name is Fei, Sungjin found her especially for him. She can be trusted with every piece of information Jaebum feels like he needs too. She’s good at listening too. “Everyone does. You don’t need to tear them all day. Just install some doors and give a couple people the key.”

“Sungjin doesn’t have any walls,” Jaebum counters, “he tells me everything. He’s an open book.”

Fei hums. “You talk about Sungjin like you think he’s perfect.” He is, Jaebum almost says. He bites his tongue but Fei much catch it in the look in his eyes and the way he bites his lip. “He’s not and it’s not productive for you to think that.” 

“I owe him everything,” Jaebum mumbles lamely. 

“Jaebum,” Fei caps the pen she was using for notes and folds her hands together, “Sungjin is the not the reason you are getting better. You are the reason you’re getting better. Sungjin is helping you. Because Sungjin is a good person, but he is not perfect. You are responsible for all the recovery you’ve made, Jaebum,” 

 

#45: **NAKED**  
Maybe naked with Sungjin’s mouth around his dick isn’t the best time to bring it up, but Jaebum does it anyway. “Sungjin,” he says, scratching at his scalp Jaebum has in his hair. Sungjin pulls off of Jaebum and hums to show he’s listening, kissing Jaebum’s thighs. “Do you think I would be okay without you?” 

Sungjin stops, props his chin on Jaebum’s hip bone, “what do you mean?” 

“If I,” Jaebum swallows, “if I didn’t have you do you think I’d still be broken?” 

“No,” Sungjin says without hesitation, “you always had the capacity to put yourself back together. I helped you realize that, maybe, but you did the rest by yourself, you know that?” 

Jaebum smiles. His chest feels so warm when he looks at Sungjin, right now it feels like he’s caught some of those sun rays that Sungjin radiates inside of him. “Sometimes I forget,” 

“I wanna be with you,” Sungjin says, “I wanna be with you all the time and - I know didn’t always act like it - but I know even if I wasn’t you would be okay.” 

 

#46: **DRIVE**  
Sungjin has always been the type of person, for as long as Jaebum has known him, who always wants to be better. From when they were kids and Sungjin was so small and weak but he tried so hard not to be. From when Sungjin did everything he could to help everyone and then turned himself into a fucking super soldier to do it better. 

Jaebum never had to be better - not when they were younger. He was already taller, faster, stronger than all the other kids when they were that age. When he was the Asset they gave him everything artificial he needed to be the best. 

Present Jaebum needs to be better. He wants to be better. Past Sungjin teaches him so many things about that. 

 

#47: **HARM**  
Months and months ago, Sungjin would say to Jaebum over and over, “I won’t let anyone hurt you again. I promise. No one will hurt you.” He had whispered it into Jaebum’s hair, into his skin and into the very core of his soul. Dug those words into Jaebum until he felt them branded across his heart. 

They’re in the field, a routine mission gone a little messy as they are prone to do. Jaebum is doing his best to cover Sungjin’s back. He catches a bullet in the side for his trouble - and when he groans and hits the floor Sungjin turns back to look at him. “Jaebum!” He calls. 

He drops to his knees beside Jaebum and presses a hand to the wound. It’s not serious but fuck, it hurts. Jaebum’s eyes are a little hazy, his brain a little fuzzy with pain. When his vision adjusts he sees a nameless henchman raise his automatic weapon to fire on Sungjin.

Jaebum grabs Sungjin by his shoulder with the extra strength of his metal arm, pulling him on the opposite side of Jaebum. The henchman fires, misses Sungjin by a hair and catches Jaebum with a second bullet - this time right into his shoulder blade. 

Pain hits him again. He thinks he sees Brian efficiently dispatch of the henchman that surround them, Dowoon maybe picking off a few from his perch on a roof. 

“Stupid,” Sungjin says. His voice is worried, but not panicked. Jaebum’s wounds are not liable to kill him and help is arriving quickly. “What did you do that for?” 

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Jaebum croaks. 

 

#48: **PRECIOUS**  
Sungjin has always looked at Jaebum like he is precious. Like a diamond, or the way icicles reflect shine in the light of the sun. These days Jaebum thinks he’s close to earning those looks. 

 

#49: **HUNGER**  
Jaebum sits shirtless on his and Sungjin’s bed. Sungjin pulls gently at the wound dressing on Jaebum’s shoulder, exposing the stitches and scabbing to the air. 

Sungjin rubs a thin layer of salve over it, Jaebum hissing while he does. “I think you’re good to go back into the field,” Sungjin says. He’s always taken care of the wound on Jaebum’s hip and he’s starting to cover Jaebum’s shoulder with fresh dressing. “We’ll get the doctor to check you tomorrow, though,” 

“Thank you,” Jaebum says, pushing two fingers against the edge of his new dressings. 

Sungjin smiles at Jaebum, “you healed good,” he says. 

Sungjin has treated Jaebum much the same as he did when they first saved him, which was years ago. With the same gentle touches and cautious actions. It’s a habit Sungjin will never break, it seems.

But it’s made Jaebum hungry. He saw Sungjin emerge from the shower in only a towel the other day and it had made his gut twist with want. But he was injured and Sungjin was not having it. Cleared for field work meant Sungjin could manhandle him all he wanted again, right? 

Jaebum conducts an experiment. He grabs Sungjin by the curve of his neck and pulls him forward, fast, and slots their mouths together a little messily. Sungjin groans, but their are no protests. In fact, he grips Jaebum’s upper arm and pulls himself closer. 

They end up laid out on the bed, kissing for what feels like a long time considering how much Jaebum had been waiting for this. But it’s good regardless, and it’s even better when Sungjin gets his fingers in Jaebum and opens him up slow. 

Even better when Sungjin pushes into Jaebum at that same slow pace. Pulls out far enough to make Jaebum whimper and then thrust back in - slow still, so slow. So slow and so frustrating but so good. Jaebum wants to scream. 

When Sungjin takes Jaebum’s dick into his hand pumps it it’s slow too. Jaebum’s eyes leak at the corners and Sungjin kisses the tears away, still tugging on Jaebum’s dick with no rush. Jaebum comes, what feels like hours later, and then Sungjin fucks him fast to find his own orgasm. It doesn’t take him long, all things considered. 

“That was,” Jaebum says when Sungjin flops onto the bed beside him, “a lot,” 

“Been waiting to do that for weeks,” Sungjin admits, them blushes from his cheeks down to his toes. 

 

#50: **BELIEVE**  
Life is hard. Things will get better. Sungjin believes this. 

Jaebum is starting to believe it too.


End file.
